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Really bad reasoning. A chain fails with one weak link. A chain doesn't succeed because of one strong link, they all have to be strong. There's nothing remotely

Really bad reasoning. A chain fails with one weak link. A chain doesn't succeed because of one strong link, they all have to be strong. There's nothing remotely like symmetry.

rramadass 5y ago
>A chain fails with one weak link. A chain doesn't succeed because of one strong link, they all have to be strong. There's nothing remotely like symmetry You absolutely nailed it! This is why when people ascribe Success to any one factor, i simply roll my eyes. Personal Characteristics/Motivation, Timing, Circumstances, Random Chance etc. all have a role. The relative proportion of their weights will vary for any given event but all are necessary. As a learning and adaptive organism we do have some control over some of the factors i.e. ability to change their relative weights but everyone of them still count and cannot be neglected. On the other hand, Failure is the general status-quo because it is so easy to be unaware/miss/neglect any single factor which might be essential (i.e. has a higher weightage) to achieve the goal. Looked at from the above pov, it becomes clear that Failure is unavoidable and not something to be afraid of but is an essential learning method, thus; trial and error methodology. The importance of personal initiative and self-effort also now becomes evident; it is the only way we have to control and tame the various factors to the extent possible in our favour.
jimmySixDOF 5y ago
But likewise, not all failures are necessarily equivalent either and a form of success is how you structure the links to allow for that.
ummonk 5y ago
There are still multiple causes of failure there though. Why was the chain manufactured with a weak link? Why wasn't the weak link discovered during periodic inspection / testing? Why wasn't there a second chain to add redundancy and back up the first?
- rramadass 5y ago
  You have missed the point. It is not that there cannot be multiple points of failure; it is that it takes just one point of failure to bring the entire system down. As long as there are dependant and moving parts failure will be inherent in the system; it cannot be "inspected/tested" away. Adding redundancy does not remove failure it merely transforms/postpones it. Failure is the "natural" state; we intuitively understand this through the concept of entropy always increasing (or more colloquially; "everything is going to shit") unless we do something about it i.e. expend energy and do work.
- roenxi 5y ago
  And practically, a company is built to succeed and designed with centralised executive power (end of the day, the CEO). If it fails then there is always a deeper level of accountability that can be singled out as a cause. Therefore there has to be a single cause of failure, because all else failing the CEO has mucked up. And practically speaking there is probably a root cause somewhere closer to the problem. "There are multiple causes of failure" style arguments are technically true, but also the sort of argument that people make when they aren't going to do anything to improve. There are many things that could change. There aren't many reasons why there was a failure. > Why was the chain manufactured with a weak link? I don't think it is feasible to manufacture a chain without a weakest link. The materials science requirements to produce truly identical links are extreme.
  - kqr 5y ago
    The CEO does not operate in a vacuum -- they, too, can be the victim of the circumstances they find themselves in. By saying "person X screwed up" you're making it impossible for yourself to learn important things that could prevent the same problem from occurring again. This is true regardless of the level of the person you're blaming. The people who truly improve systems are, in my experience, the ones that do consider multiple causes of failure. The ones who latch onto narrow chains tend to fix symptoms and then think they're done.
beebmam 5y ago
An analogy is not an argument. It is an assumption
di4na 5y ago
[Citation needed] on the chain analogy being applicable to complex systems safety. Because the research disagree on that.
- rramadass 5y ago
  Huh? See https://how.complexsystems.fail/ https://how.complexsystems.fail/ and watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S0k12uZR14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S0k12uZR14 The "chain analogy" is just that i.e. a Metaphor. You need to map it to your studies in Systems Science and Complexity Science. Start with the works of Henry Petroski. Then look at the works of Nassim Taleb, in particular Antifragile. Finally, do a search for "Failure in Complex Systems" and you get tons of journal articles one of which i have listed above.
  - di4na 5y ago
    I uh. I know all of these really well. That is the one i would use to tell you you are wrong in the analogy of the chain. These all say that our systems do not work like chains. Oh and btw, all these scholars consider Taleb like a wanker for a reason :)
withinboredom 5y ago
A chain always fails by a weak link. It’s not possible for it to fail in any other way. Cutting it creates a weaker link, for example. Identifying the weak link and understanding why it isn’t failing would be the root cause of success. Identifying what stress on the weak link causes it to fail, would be the root cause of failure.
mrweasel 5y ago
Talking about computers and software, having redundant "chains" aren't uncommon. That's one of the fascinating things about software, we still have no reason to trust it to the degree that engineers who build bridges trust their work. There are almost never a backup bridge, and we quickly dismantle ferry routes as bridges are erected. As developers and systems administrators we expect things to fail, if we're any good at our jobs, and implement redundancy, write restore procedures and in some cases create manual backup processes. Yet it's not uncommon to have multiple links fail and still bring down our towers of complexity and instability.
Jensson 5y ago
A strong chain isn't enough to generate success though, and you could argue it is the least important part of success. In order for a chain to be useful it needs to pull something, a chain without something to pull is useless. And that thing the chain is pulling could be argued to be the root cause of success, while any part of the chain not capable of bearing the pull would be a root cause of failure. Making a strong chain is easy, finding a use-case for a strong chain is much harder. It doesn't matter how strong the chain is if there is nobody there who can pull it. And if you have a good use case and a person to pull it you can just get a standard chain, few fail because they failed to get a standard chain.

Really bad reasoning. A chain fails with one weak link. A chain doesn't succeed because of one strong link, they all have to be strong. There's nothing remotely like symmetry.

rramadass 5y ago

>A chain fails with one weak link. A chain doesn't succeed because of one strong link, they all have to be strong. There's nothing remotely like symmetry You absolutely nailed it! This is why when people ascribe Success to any one factor, i simply roll my eyes. Personal Characteristics/Motivation, Timing, Circumstances, Random Chance etc. all have a role. The relative proportion of their weights will vary for any given event but all are necessary. As a learning and adaptive organism we do have some control over some of the factors i.e. ability to change their relative weights but everyone of them still count and cannot be neglected. On the other hand, Failure is the general status-quo because it is so easy to be unaware/miss/neglect any single factor which might be essential (i.e. has a higher weightage) to achieve the goal. Looked at from the above pov, it becomes clear that Failure is unavoidable and not something to be afraid of but is an essential learning method, thus; trial and error methodology. The importance of personal initiative and self-effort also now becomes evident; it is the only way we have to control and tame the various factors to the extent possible in our favour.

jimmySixDOF 5y ago

But likewise, not all failures are necessarily equivalent either and a form of success is how you structure the links to allow for that.

ummonk 5y ago

There are still multiple causes of failure there though. Why was the chain manufactured with a weak link? Why wasn't the weak link discovered during periodic inspection / testing? Why wasn't there a second chain to add redundancy and back up the first?

rramadass 5y ago
You have missed the point. It is not that there cannot be multiple points of failure; it is that it takes just one point of failure to bring the entire system down. As long as there are dependant and moving parts failure will be inherent in the system; it cannot be "inspected/tested" away. Adding redundancy does not remove failure it merely transforms/postpones it. Failure is the "natural" state; we intuitively understand this through the concept of entropy always increasing (or more colloquially; "everything is going to shit") unless we do something about it i.e. expend energy and do work.
roenxi 5y ago
And practically, a company is built to succeed and designed with centralised executive power (end of the day, the CEO). If it fails then there is always a deeper level of accountability that can be singled out as a cause. Therefore there has to be a single cause of failure, because all else failing the CEO has mucked up. And practically speaking there is probably a root cause somewhere closer to the problem. "There are multiple causes of failure" style arguments are technically true, but also the sort of argument that people make when they aren't going to do anything to improve. There are many things that could change. There aren't many reasons why there was a failure. > Why was the chain manufactured with a weak link? I don't think it is feasible to manufacture a chain without a weakest link. The materials science requirements to produce truly identical links are extreme.
- kqr 5y ago
  The CEO does not operate in a vacuum -- they, too, can be the victim of the circumstances they find themselves in. By saying "person X screwed up" you're making it impossible for yourself to learn important things that could prevent the same problem from occurring again. This is true regardless of the level of the person you're blaming. The people who truly improve systems are, in my experience, the ones that do consider multiple causes of failure. The ones who latch onto narrow chains tend to fix symptoms and then think they're done.

beebmam 5y ago

An analogy is not an argument. It is an assumption

di4na 5y ago

[Citation needed] on the chain analogy being applicable to complex systems safety. Because the research disagree on that.

rramadass 5y ago
Huh? See https://how.complexsystems.fail/ https://how.complexsystems.fail/ and watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S0k12uZR14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S0k12uZR14 The "chain analogy" is just that i.e. a Metaphor. You need to map it to your studies in Systems Science and Complexity Science. Start with the works of Henry Petroski. Then look at the works of Nassim Taleb, in particular Antifragile. Finally, do a search for "Failure in Complex Systems" and you get tons of journal articles one of which i have listed above.
- di4na 5y ago
  I uh. I know all of these really well. That is the one i would use to tell you you are wrong in the analogy of the chain. These all say that our systems do not work like chains. Oh and btw, all these scholars consider Taleb like a wanker for a reason :)

withinboredom 5y ago

A chain always fails by a weak link. It’s not possible for it to fail in any other way. Cutting it creates a weaker link, for example. Identifying the weak link and understanding why it isn’t failing would be the root cause of success. Identifying what stress on the weak link causes it to fail, would be the root cause of failure.

mrweasel 5y ago

Talking about computers and software, having redundant "chains" aren't uncommon. That's one of the fascinating things about software, we still have no reason to trust it to the degree that engineers who build bridges trust their work. There are almost never a backup bridge, and we quickly dismantle ferry routes as bridges are erected. As developers and systems administrators we expect things to fail, if we're any good at our jobs, and implement redundancy, write restore procedures and in some cases create manual backup processes. Yet it's not uncommon to have multiple links fail and still bring down our towers of complexity and instability.

Jensson 5y ago

A strong chain isn't enough to generate success though, and you could argue it is the least important part of success. In order for a chain to be useful it needs to pull something, a chain without something to pull is useless. And that thing the chain is pulling could be argued to be the root cause of success, while any part of the chain not capable of bearing the pull would be a root cause of failure. Making a strong chain is easy, finding a use-case for a strong chain is much harder. It doesn't matter how strong the chain is if there is nobody there who can pull it. And if you have a good use case and a person to pull it you can just get a standard chain, few fail because they failed to get a standard chain.